


extraordinary boy

by mangemouth



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-16 14:23:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1350604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangemouth/pseuds/mangemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's hard not to love Rin," is what he says instead, because that's what brought them to this. It's nobody's fault, especially not Rin's, but it feels like they've both been sleeping for so long. Maybe it's important to remember, sometimes, that it's not just Rin who has changed - Haruka and Makoto have been growing up too, if with less notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	extraordinary boy

Nanase Haruka might be strangely quiet for a teenage boy, but by no account does that mean he is stupid.

There are things he has learned. He has learned to cook. He has learned to manage a house. He has learned to be polite to strangers. He has learned to draw the things he finds lovely or sad. He has learned to wake up on time for school. He has learned to let it go, when his parents forget to call on Saturdays, like they are supposed to. He has learned what loss is, and how it sinks into your skin and hair and clothes like spilled ink.

But he has also learned that there is more to find in life than a dull, drowning serenity. He has learned Nagisa hates coconut with such a passion it leaves him speechless, and has been to six different countries. He has learned that Makoto possesses perfect pitch, and is secretly saving up for guitar lessons in a very cute jellyfish mug. He has learned that Rei owns an entire embarrassing collection of patterned pajamas, which he is not remotely ashamed of. He has learned to chase after the things that matter, like friends and dreams and a feeling inside that enlivens him like a never-ending summer.

There are, even more importantly, some things he just - knows. He knows Makoto's hand will be there to pull him out of the pool. He knows how to soothe a scared child. He knows how to be patient, and seize on the correct timing of anything. He knows the water. He knows how to swim. And he knows he has loved Matsuoka Rin since he was 12, and thought he was the most annoying boy in the entire world.

 

 

After everything, the relay, the tears and reconciliation, he's still pretty annoying.

A day lazing at Haruka's house annoyingly becomes a day at the beach, because Rin doesn't understand how they can just sit still on a such a great, sunny, breezy day. A day perfect for kites, Nagisa realizes, un-sticking his face from Haruka's tatami with an unfortunate noise. A day perfect for barbecue, too, muses Makoto from the couch, although probably just because he missed lunch. And sandcastle construction, Rei pipes up, his voice stupidly augmented from the fan in front of him. Standing at the porch door, the blue sky and green garden are drowned out by red, sunburned Rin as he looks at Haruka, and - and -

and swimming, Haruka acknowledges quietly, and Rin smiles at him so brightly, the perfect day cannot contend.

 

 

Nanase Haruka might not understand all the conventions of love, but that does not mean he can't recognize it.

He recognizes it in Makoto's parents, the way they say thank you to one another for small things, like remembering to buy the extra-strong bug repellent for Mr. Tachibana's vegetable garden. They've been married since they were only a year out of high school, and they still laugh like kids having a sleepover in the living room, trying to be quiet when Ren and Ran have gone to bed, and Makoto and Haruka clean up the kitchen. They don't kiss or hold hands all over the house, but Haruka has caught them in an even more compromising position - sharing the tiny bathroom sink amicably, without a single bumped elbow or cross word. Mrs. Tachibana gets seasonal flowers all the time, from a "secret" admirer who strangely has the same handwriting and initials as her husband. Haruka sees them, and he sees love, and he understands it's not whatever the hell manga and dramas push, but something quieter and more delicate, that needs to be looked after and minded, like a new sprout.

He recognizes it in himself, of course, in the marrow-deep knowledge that if he should slip on the bathroom tile and break his neck, or choke on a fish bone, his last thought would be of red eyes and red hair and sharp, stupid teeth. He recognizes it in the way that his slow-burn interest in things like kissing and sex peak when Rin is laughing, when Rin is showering, when Rin is hanging all over him smelling like sweat and boy and sea air. All the time, he wants to joke with him, talk with him, run with him, swim with him. He wants to relearn Rin like a language he's forgotten, and recite the entirety of him every day before dawn and after supper. He wants to hold their past losses and loneliness up to one another and say, I can't understand what it was like completely, but I'm here, and you're here, and I'll never stop trying, because it's you. His love runs deep and races all throughout him, like fault lines, from the tips of fingers that grab Rin's Samezuka jacket to the heels he presses against the pool wall, swearing he can somehow feel Rin's heels doing the same, just inches away. 

Haruka is just a too-thoughtful teenager from a too-sleepy fishing town, but he knows he loves Rin, the way the Tachibanas love one another, the way the sea loves the shore.

 

 

Nanase Haruka might operate primarily on internal rhythms and intuitions, but he is not unobservant to the outside world.

Even so, when he recognizes love in his best friend for Rin, he wonders if he isn't stupid after all.

 

 

It's strange. He hasn't confessed to Rin yet, because - because it wouldn't be fair to him, right now. For all their time apart and sometimes awkward re-learning of one another, he knows Rin, and he knows he has weathered so many storms just to get back to them. He shouldn't be thrust him back in over his head the moment his feet have finally touched land. There will be plenty of time for them, Haruka always felt, because he simply won't ever let Rin go so far away again. Not physically - obviously, Rin's dream might take him to places Haruka can't reach or doesn't care to go. He still isn't sure if he'll try out for the national team in a year's time, and that he's even considering it is something he's kept quiet from the redhead, for fear of dashing his hopes. But he'll never, ever let Rin go as a friend again, as someone so important that his entire world changed the day they met (from somber blue to sunrise red). He'll never let Rin think he is unwanted or unloved, never again, because there is no one more deserving in the world of love than that idiot romantic crybaby who wants to show the whole world his passions and ideals.

Haruka knows when to seize an opportunity; he is not indecisive. Nor is he fearful of being rejected, because it's inconceivable that this kind of love, a powerful mix of friendship and chemistry and completeness that kept their bond holding strong even after four years of loneliness and pain, is one-sided. But this... complicates things, uncomfortably. His head uncharacteristically clamors over his gut, and his heart reminds him he hasn't kissed Rin yet. That he hasn't made him come. That he hasn't said _Rin, I love you,_  and that there could be the faintest possibility that the person to do all those things could be Makoto, instead.

He isn't sure how to feel about that, because Rin is his. It's an absurdly clear and selfish thought to have, since Rin is of course Rin's, but he can't imagine a future in which they aren't side by side, closer than now, closer than anyone. He can't imagine a future in which someone else smooths down Rin's insecurities and tries to keep up with his nonstop energy. He can't imagine another person to call Rin late at night just to talk, or another person fucking Rin until he's totally useless at swimming practice the next day.

After much consideration, he supposes he should feel jealous. But the thought of being jealous of something Makoto might have - it tastes terrible on his tongue, like a burnt dinner that green-eyed boy himself might cook.

 

 

It's tiresome. Makoto thinks he doesn't know, thinks Haruka can't know, because Makoto knows Haruka loves Rin.

There are no secrets between them, less by choice and more by nature - Makoto sees him in the morning and understands Haruka is excited for joint practice later. Makoto looks over in the afternoon and knows Haruka is stressed about dealing with the crowds on the train that weekend. Makoto glances at Haruka at night and sees he's just realized that he's forgotten his towel at the swim club. It doesn't bother him that Makoto must have, at some point, read it in his eyes or his hands or his smile that he loves Rin. Haruka has always appreciated this remarkable connection he and Makoto share, as someone who has felt tired of words from the day he was born. 

(And then four years ago, Rin had left them, after all his lovely words, and Haruka really never forgave their ugliness after that.)

What a clumsy way for a species to communicate, through arbitrary noises. Rei should come up with the theory for something else, he thinks, something more beautiful and precise. Then way he could say something less stupid to Makoto, something that's not,  _I know you know and I know, you know,_ and save them both the grief of hearing it.

 

 

He can't be jealous, and he can't get the words out. Nanase Haruka might be thoughtful and maybe a bit obsessive about his friends and Matsuoka Rin, but he is also just seventeen, and his best friend loves the same boy as he does, and

 

it just sort of fucking sucks, actually.

 

 

During joint swim practice, he's left wondering how he could have missed it, all this time. There's a pit in his stomach, and it's because he doesn't know when Makoto started feeling this way. What kind of friend does that make him, to not have noticed when his best friend fell in love? What kind of friend does that make him, to assume Rin would have no other interested parties? What kind of friend would he be, if he acted on his feelings just to preempt Makoto acting on his? What kind of friend would he be, if he turned Rin's world upside down before either of them were ready?

It's distantly painful to realize that Makoto would be really good for Rin, able to be the source of unwavering support and admiration Rin needs to grow. Rin would be good for Makoto, too, be able to teach him to be unafraid of the world, to chase his own aspirations without hesitation.

Maybe Makoto's been in love with Matsuoka Rin since he was 12, and thought he was the most charming boy in the entire world. Haruka can't blame him. He can't blame Rin, either. And it's not his fault, that the timing hasn't been right.

It's nobody's fault, but Haruka can't help but feel pressed, when Makoto and Rin lean their heads together, grinning conspiratorially at a particularly good time in the water. He can't help but feel apprehensive when Rin's gravity pulls Makoto away from his side and into an orbit that's just the two of them. He can't help but want to get up and wave his arms and selfishly keep both Rin's attention and Makoto's support. Even if he's learned to chase things again, Nanase Haruka is still used to  things coming to him. Makoto never left him before, and even Rin came back to him, in the end.

Makoto and Rin start laughing across the pool, and it's completely true that Haruka is happy for them, happy his most important people care for each other so much.

But it's also true that he won't be happy if they care too much.

 

 

They're sitting on Haruka's back porch, like any other evening, snapping the ends off a pile of string beans for dinner, when Makoto reveals his love for Rin to Haruka as if it was a secret. It takes him three and a half tries, and he stutters, and he can't make eye contact. Haruka wonders if Rin would like that, a shy confession. Haruka wonders what the hell he is going to do, because Makoto isn't used to things coming to him. Tachibana Makoto might shriek at scary movies and fear the ocean, but he's brave when he needs to be, makes things happen when they need to. He swam in stormy seas for Rei, and he reached out to Rin first when no one else knew what to do. To think Makoto is too cowardly to confess would be absurd.

"I know," Haruka responds, and Makoto gapes at him like the silly seventeen year old he is.

"You know?"

"Of course I know," Haruka grumbles irritably. He'd wanted to avoid this clumsiness, but there's nothing for it. They go back to snapping string beans, a counterpoint to the cicadas hidden in the grass below their feet.

"Are," Makoto stutters again, and Haruka isn't sure what the other boy is reading in his elbows, in his eyes and the fall of his hair, when he manages, "Are you mad at me, Haru?"

"Of course not." His feelings are more uncertain than they've ever been, but he can't be mad at Makoto for wanting things. He can't be mad at Makoto when he wants him to be so, so happy.

"But you - "

A little sharply, now, because he knows what he knows, he doesn't need to be told, "I _know_ , Makoto."

"Oh," says the taller boy softly. He's fiddling with a string bean instead of snapping it, which is counterproductive to making dinner, but understandable. They're both quiet again, and Haruka realizes this is where he should reassure his friend. He should say something to put them both at ease, about finding themselves in this untenable situation, where one or both of them will end up heartbroken no matter what happens. It's strange to think about it like that, maybe a little cliche, but Haruka has already been heartbroken over Rin for years, so he knows it would feel exactly like that. For one or both of them, it will feel like being the cicada shell, instead of the cicada. It will feel like drowning in a bath tub.

"It's hard not to love Rin," is what he says instead, because that's what brought them to this. It's nobody's fault, especially not Rin's, but they've both been sleeping for so long. Maybe it's important to remember, sometimes, that it's not just Rin who has changed - Haruka and Makoto have been growing up too, if with less notice.

Makoto surprises him when he laughs. It's a little tight, a little taxed, but it's a relief to hear. "I was actually thinking the same thing, you know, Haru."

"I know," says Haruka again, and finds himself exhaling a little easier over his string bean.

 

 

"It's not faaaair," Nagisa whines, collapsing on the storefront hard enough to rattle the window's frame. Haruka idly watches the ice cream shop owner make an exhausted face, probably at the prospect of washing teen ass off his window. He leans next to Nagisa anyway.

He grunts inquisitively, and Nagisa precariously jerks his triple-scoop ice cream towards Makoto and Rin, petting the cute white cat from the fabric shop a few blocks over.

"Those two! Everyone likes Rin-chan the best."

Haruka is surprised at the complaint, although maybe not too surprised. Nagisa and Rei and Gou are growing up too, and he's relatively sure the blonde also has his sights set on one of his closest friends. It could be that Nagisa also obsesses over the colour red, over sharp wits and a sharper tongue. It could be that Nagisa dreams of the colour purple instead, a hue like a hazy winter night, and things that are beautiful. Who knows; sometimes, open, cheerful Nagisa is the hardest to read of all.

The blond continues, huffy and made bold by teenage discontent, even if his tone is silly and light "You like him, Mako-chan likes him, Ai-chan likes him - "

"Ai-chan?" Haruka blinks. A third person? This is getting stupid.

 

"Nitori, Haru-chan! Duh!"

"Nitori likes Rin?"

"Well," Nagisa admits a little woodenly, "maybe that's not really 'like,' um."

Haruka is glad he was not there for whatever conversation Nagisa has had with Rin's underclassman.

"I wish someone would look at me like that," Nagisa finishes, and his tone falters a bit, like he's said something he hadn't meant to. 

The older looks over at Makoto and Rin, feeling uncertain of what he should say. The truth is what he usually defaults to, though, so he says, "They might already."

"Ehhh? Me? You think?" Nagisa's eyes are wide, and he doesn't seem to realize his ice cream is dripping onto his own shoe. "You really think, Haru-chan?"

Makoto glances up from rubbing the cat's tummy, and he and Haruka share one of those looks that they've been sharing since that night on the porch. It's a little bit of understanding, a little bit of competition, a little bit of wry humor. 

It's a little bit like being best friends with someone, who likes - loves the same person you do.

"Could you kids not lean on my window?" comes a dry voice beside Haruka, and he jumps, startled.

Nagisa is unphased as he comes to attention, getting to his feet properly with a cute little salute. "Sorry!" he chirps, and gives a smile like everything will be okay. There's an unrelenting lightness where there wasn't before, the kind only Nagisa seems able to come up with. Maybe it will be alright. Teen ass marks, dumbass love triangles, all of it. 

And Haruka thinks, it probably will.

 

 

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Nanase Haruka is not an expert on life, love, and falling for ridiculous boys with no doubt confused dentists, but he at least was able to predict Makoto's actions to the letter.

Two and a half weeks after their day at the ice cream stand, Makoto shows up at his door. His umbrella is made slightly concave by the heavy drops of summer showers, and he tells him that tomorrow, he is going to confess to Rin. And Haruka suddenly feels - feels -

 

 _everything_ , and when Makoto quietly asks if he could come inside for a few minutes, he wonders just how badly he just gave himself away.

 

 

Makoto's hands are surer than maybe they've ever been, curling around the cup of tea. Haruka had thought - no, he'd been _sure_ that they would shake with nerves, with the enormity of what he's just said, and checked for signs of his friend's anxieties, but they're still. It fills the older with a keener sense of foreboding, more pressing and present than what's been simmering already for weeks now. He is a creature of habit and intuition and patterns, and this is a deviation. This is an aggravation. This is his best friend, who has only ever put him first.

But, for good reason - not this time.

"I won't stay too long," Makoto assures him, although Haruka isn't certain why that's even relevant. After all, it's just another game of y _ou know I know you know._ He'd needed a friend, and knowing this, Makoto had asked to come in, and he had let him. But he also feels upset and afraid and - betrayed, that exactly what he'd thought would come to pass, has. It's the height of stupidity, to be surprised at something you saw coming, like being shocked when one wave comes after the next.

Of course, Haruka says nothing, and in perhaps the first time of their history together as the odd couple, Makoto also says nothing. The atmosphere grows tenser, too tense for even Haruka to bear. He watches the steam rise from his own teacup as if in a daze. But rather than seeing steam, he's seeing it happen all over again - once again, he has been too slow to act, too clumsy with his emotions and those of his friends, and once again, he is about to lose something precious and important to him, no matter what happens. It's hard to breathe normally, to think fluidly, to lift the tea cup to his mouth and pretend to be remotely interested in its warmth, in any warmth.

His emotions are just too complex and overwhelming and at odds with one another, like something big churning up foam from beneath dark waters. Maybe this is how Rin feels, all the time.

"No wonder he's such an asshole," he mumbles, blue eyes distant. Makoto's eyebrows raise.

"Who?"

 _I know you know -_ ugh. The same words, such a balm to hear a cicada-song night before, now sting like the nettles calling for soothing in the first place. " - Nobody."

The silence returns but only briefly, as Makoto finds the courage to break it. Let no one ever say Makoto is not brave; let no one ever think Makoto's actions, with Rin or anything, are the results of fear. "I just thought I should tell you," he says, because he's not just brave, he's honest to a fault.

"Why?" bites out Haruka, and it's a valid question as far as he is concerned; it would be easier to tell him after he's confessed. After Rin has responded, and maybe unintentionally changed the course of Haruka's life, _again_ , just after he'd finally found his path.

"Because I needed to." In this moment, Makoto is not bright and soft, not misdirecting with smiles and sleepy eyes. He's serious and calm, without even the recurrent wryness that has recently twisted his mouth. "I - it's not like I want to, level the playing field, or anything, because this isn't a game, it's yours and mine and Rin's feelings." If there's anything Makoto takes seriously, it's his friendships. It's his family. It's the people he loves most, in whatever way that is. "I just thought you should know," he repeats.

Haruka fills in the answer that's left unspoken, because it's so obvious; they're best friends. They don't tell one another everything, by far, but they tell each other what matters. This matters, maybe too much. What comes out of his mouth, almost unbidden, is a too blank, "What do I do?" He has no armor of apathy against his best friend, not anymore. It's been peeled away, it's been melted down. Even if this is no one's fault, even if Makoto isn't meaning to hurt him, he feels struck in a vulnerable place. Makoto must know how he feels, must know exactly what he's doing to him as he's doing it. He's not sure which of them is more pitiful, right now.

Accordingly to his thoughts, Makoto's face falters, and he looks down. He still delivers the totally unacceptable answer of, "I don't know." The kitchen windows could blast open with flood water, thinks Haruka, could fill up the whole room with sweet-smelling rain and drown them at the table, and it wouldn't compare to how his heart sinks, how his gut fills with heaviness, how parts of him are getting drenched that had been finally put out to be dried and reformed. But Makoto saves him from the deluge when he adds, "I think, with everything being how it is, it's - something we both have to figure out for ourselves. And, also, I think it's past time someone let Rin know about any of this." An attempt is made at a grin, but it's more of a grimace. "I think he'd be really pissed at us."

Haruka wants to say another jumble of insipid words, _I know Rin knows I love him,_ but finds he actually ...doesn't, _know_ , if Rin knows. It occurs to him, for the first time since their reunion, that Rin actually might not be aware of the current Haruka's ridden closer and closer to him. That the boy he can't imagine a future without could have an entirely different path in mind. That Rin actually might not love him back yet, or might not love him ever. Maybe he would have, maybe he could have, if Haruka had told him he was loved in the first place.

But he's not going to tell him now, not before Makoto tells him. And that - that one fumble of words, one of Makoto's gentle smiles, could change everything. He's a creature of observation and patterns and intelligence, but it's like he's learned fucking nothing. All along, he's really just been water and salt, like the tears that are suddenly pricking uncomfortably behind his eyes. He doesn't let them fall, because it's childish to cry "unfair" after he'd waited so long and been so silent. He's let everyone down, not just Rin, not just Makoto, not just himself. He was supposed to be changing into something better than a boy too selfish to tell people his feelings, and then too selfish to accept the unexpected feelings of others. It's not for Rin's sake that he hadn't confessed yet, not really, and he can't believe how long he's let himself believe that Rin actually is his, as simple as that.

"This is stupid," he spits around the lump in his throat, "talking about it. It's not going to change anything." 

"No," Makoto agrees, with a quiet shake of his head.

"Good luck tomorrow," he finds himself adding. Even with his chest tight, like he needs to come up for air, he finds himself meaning it, too.

"Thanks," his best friend responds. He ruffles a hand through Haruka's hair, brotherly, as if he's trying to relieve the pressure at his temples.

With his usual good intuition, Makoto leaves him to his thoughts shortly after. As soon as he does, Haruka gets up to lock the storm latches on the kitchen windows.

Right now, even the heavy-sweet summer rain isn't welcome.

 

 

Nanase Haruka does not spend the day Makoto confesses to Rin in the tub. He doesn't spend it in the pool, either.

He goes to sit by the ocean, because it means something to all three of them.

 

 

He doesn't hear from Makoto or Rin for the next two days. No calls, no texts, no dropping by to stick to Haruka's floor and complain about his dietary preferences. It wouldn't be completely strange from Rin, who is still overcoming his reluctance to reaching out, and is also the busiest of them all, dedicated to his training even over break. It is strange from Makoto, who doesn't text or call much, but is always stopping by to invite him to dinner with his family, or to play with the cats that tend to collect in Haruka's backyard. It's all even stranger knowing that two days ago, Makoto confessed to Rin.

On the evening of the third day, his feet arrive at Makoto's house without his notice or leave.

Mrs. Tachibana opens the door, sweet and gentle and somewhat distracted, like her son. "Oh, hello, Haruka! Makoto didn't tell me you were coming tonight."

"I'm not staying for dinner," he says, knowing that 'I don't have enough rice and fish for 2 growing boys' look. He surprises himself with how easy the lie after is, "Just returning a video."

"Oh, I see." He's not offended that she looks a little relieved. The Tachibanas aren't that well-off, financially. Five mouths were a lot to feed on one salary, six didn't make it easier. "Well, he's upstairs with your friend." She lets him in, and Haruka's feet move woodenly through the motions of taking off his shoes at the door. He kind of wishes Mrs. Tachibana would leave it at that, but she adds, "I wouldn't be surprised if those two were blind by now. They've been shut up there for two days already, playing some new video game." Mrs. Tachibana's tone offers fond exasperation, the stairs offer escape. He heads that way. The woman calls after him, "Oh, and would you remind Makoto to wear his glasses using the TV? So he doesn't strain his eyes."

"Okay," he calls back, and focuses on climbing the stairs and pushing air in and out of his lungs at the same time. He doesn't want to think about it, but the distance from the front door to Makoto's bedroom is longer than it's ever been, leaving him too many seconds to turn over unwanted information. It's been three days, that Makoto has been alone in his room with Rin. Three days, in which his friends found each other and left him behind.

Three days since Makoto confessed to Rin, asked if he was loved back, and Rin - said yes.

 

 

Nanase Haruka is a water and salt boy, who has been in love with Matsuoka Rin since he was 12 years old.

So, it's easy to tell the difference between Rin, sharp and tidal Rin, and the cheerful blond sprawled victoriously on Makoto's beanbag chair like he's conquered it.

"Haru-chan?" startles Nagisa, alarmed, sitting up with a slide of beans. Well, sort of sitting up. He blushes, and Haruka knows it's because his tone carried the wrong punctuation; a question mark instead of an exclamation point. He seems to correct himself, smile suddenly beaming at 90 watts, "Haru-chan!"

"Hi," says Haruka. His best friend is not here, as promised. "Where's Makoto?"

"Um - "

"Here," says a familiar voice from behind him. Haruka turns around, but before he can open his mouth again, he's interrupted by a loud squeal from Nagisa.

" _Mako-chan_ , is that clock right!?"

"Nagisa - "

"If it is, I need to go home!" Nagisa chirps. "We're getting take-out tonight and I don't want my evil sisters to eat my share!" The younger boy struggles out of the chair gracelessly, then sets to grabbing up various things scattered around the room - presumably his, since Haruka can't recall Makoto wearing any magenta headbands - and stuffing them into his bag. He talks as he works, as if crowding out the awkward silence already beginning to accumulate between the two older boys, "You guys got _n~oooo_ idea how good you have it! I'd kill to be an only child, or the big brother! I bet your siblings never put you in a dryer and turned it on and then told when you puked everywhere, Mako-chan!"

Makoto looks pained. "Um, no - "

"And I bet Haru-chan gets to eat as much as he wants any time he wants, without a bunch of jerks telling him he's getting fat and gross!"

"Right," Haruka confirms, sitting firmly on the edge of Makoto's bed. Green eyes flicker to him, strangely unsure, like they haven't been since Rin first came back into their lives. Makoto looks like he wants to beg Nagisa to stay, or bolt out after him. The relief that's blossomed in his stomach is withering like a dried-out plant. 

"See?! Lucky, lucky, lucky!" Nagisa hits the door with his bag on his way out, stopping to wave cheerfully at his two friends. "I'm not so lucky, of course! I'll see you guys tomorrow! Um, call me later, Mako-chan!" Subtlety and Hazuki Nagisa do not mix. "Byyyyeeee!"

The door closes, and the silence Nagisa left behind is even louder for his departure.

This time, however, Haruka draws on the courage of his best friend, and breaks it.

 

 

They end up sitting together on the floor, backs pressed against the bed. Haruka's toes push idly at the beanbag chair with Nagisa's imprint while Makoto picks at his fingers. Looking at each other is hard, but they're managing to hold a conversation about - it - better than Haruka expected. Which is to say, he's actively prying a few words out of Makoto every other three minutes, instead of sitting in total quiet until Makoto asks him to leave.

He'd thought Makoto would be withdrawn about the confession, to spare his feelings, but not this withdrawn. The story comes out in fits and starts, careful, clipped in a way Makoto never is.

"It wasn't coming out right, so."

"So?"

"So I ..." Makoto finds something very interesting outside to look at. Haruka curls his fingers tighter into the carpet. "...Kissed him."

Makoto kissed Rin. Haruka is so exhausted by his own emotions at this point, and so determined to end this awful wait, the jealousy-guilt-anger-distress barely subdues him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Did he...?" He still can't say it. He can't ask if even the kiss was returned, much less Makoto's feelings. "...Ah..."

The taller boy chuckles weakly. "Kiss back?"

"Yeah."

"By 'kiss' I mean, more like, I... mashed his face against mine, and, temporarily stunned us both, mostly, so." Makoto closes his eyes, dropping his head back on the edge of the bed. "I mean, it's less like we kissed, and it's more... like, I attempted to kiss him. There was nothing to kiss back. It was a mess."

Haruka knows it's not Makoto's first kiss (Shigure Aoi was), but it's... probably the first one that mattered so much. A moment of disassociation grants him to feel upset for his friend, who got nervous and botched something probably important. That was probably Rin's first kiss, he thinks at the same time, and that thought drives any sense of distance out of his brain. It's upsetting, how these two emotions keep fighting each other, twisting his gut into knots. He has to know what happened, though. He has to expose this wound as much as possible, so he can even think about airing it.

"Sorry," he says. "...After that. What did he say?"

Makoto's gaze returns to his hands. "Ah, we should go downstairs for dinner soon."

"No," replies Haruka. It's the first time his voice has been louder than his usual mutter, and it makes Makoto look up at him. Green eyes are strained. "What did he say?"

"That he needed to think. He was kind of freaked out. So, I walked him back to his house, and... said goodbye, and..." The trailing off halts to a complete stop.

He feels something shift. Something in the air, intuition and electricity and long years at each other's side at work. "Makoto?" Haruka asks, suddenly unsure.

Makoto laughs. "Isn't it strange? Needing to think about something like that. I thought it was strange, anyway. Since Rin's such a romantic."

"Makoto," says Haruka again, brows furrowing.

"He told me yesterday," Makoto continues, and then he beams brightly at Haruka. It's painful to look at, but the shorter swimmer can't look away.

It's typical, selfish as usual; he'd thought Makoto was looking out for him and his feelings, but Makoto was actually, for once, trying to look after his own. He has his own reasons to not want to talk about two days ago, and what Rin said. He can't believe himself, the sheer audacity, but there's no time for self-pity, as Makoto begins to fall abruptly apart in front of him. Haruka reaches a hand out, hesitant and stunned, and it holds in midair between them.

"It's not me that Rin likes," Makoto finishes, still smiling so, so bright. He doesn't seem to have noticed the stressed out tears beginning to leak from the corners of his own happily closed eyes. "It's someone else."

Despite the tears, and the way the the taller boy collapses a bit when Haruka pulls him into a hug, Haruka believes his best friend when he says, "I'm so happy for you, Haru."

This time, Haruka doesn't mind the summer rain.

 

 

It's almost surreal to think that after everything, after the second most stressful summer of his life, things eventually, naturally, go back to normal. It takes a few weeks for Rin to feel totally at ease in the group again, it takes Makoto a longer few months to mean it when he says he doesn't still want to be with Rin. At the end of the day, however, Makoto and Rin are still close friends, Haruka and Makoto are still best friends, the swim club is still their home away from home, and Haruka - still hasn't confessed to Rin.

It's not until they're back in school, rapidly approaching graduation, that Haruka brings it up again. Makoto seems embarrassed to even be consulted, twisting his goggles in his hands. Haruka rests his arms on the cement beside where the captain is seated, kicking his feet lazily in the pool. He's just told Makoto that at graduation, he's going to confess to Rin. It's totally cliche, so it's something the idiot would probably find romantic.

"You don't need to ask my permission for something like that," the taller sighs softly, "I mean, just because of... yeah." It's no less awkward, admitting his previous outright crush and maybe sometimes still-lingering feelings for Rin. Even if they're not as strong as they were, Makoto has confessed he needs to sometimes remind himself, not to love Rin. Haruka can't blame him.

"It's not asking permission." The oldest is firm on this.  _You're my family_ , Haruka tries to say with his eyes, with the language of him that only Makoto can read. _You're my brother, and I want you to be happy, too_. "...I just thought I should tell you."

Makoto hears the unspoken, just as Haruka once did, and relents in his embarrassment. He does not relent all the way, though.

"I'm fine with it. ...You need to make two promises to me, though."

This is unexpected. Haruka doesn't mind - he'd promise anything to be with Rin, and he'd promise anything to Makoto, full stop. "Name them."

Makoto holds up his pointer finger. "First, you need to make a decision about trying out for the national team. If you confess to him before that, his head might fly off his body from waiting on your answer."

"He'd talk less shit that way."

The quip earns him a snort, and Haruka buries his smile against his arms. "...Second?"

"Second," Makoto's quiet for a moment, and then says, all sincerity, "Be - patient, and let him love you in his way, too."

Haruka looks up from his arms, watches his best friend's profile. They've come through what felt like it would go on forever, and they're patching themselves up bit by bit.

"I've had a good teacher for that," he admits, and he doesn't hide his smile when Makoto lights up, really, this time.

 

 

At graduation, instead of confessing his longtime love, Haruka confesses that he's made the decision to join Rin in the pursuit of an Olympic dream, and try out for the national team. Rin yells in excitement, punches the air, and then lunges forward, kissing Haruka in something that's much more like a smashing of mouths than anything else. (Haruka has exactly one second, during this painful collision, to wonder if it wasn't Rin who botched the kiss with Makoto after all.)

When they break apart, stunned, Rin says "shit" four times in varying durations (" _shit, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, shiiii-iiiit shiit?_ ") and promptly turns to leave.

Grabbing his wrist, Haruka doesn't let him; he won't ever let him run away, he won't stand by passively and watch life sweep him away like the tide. Haruka pulls Rin back to him and kisses him again, and again, dumb and messy and all over his face too, until Rin's crying salt and water all over him.

After that, the relief and the happiness and the awkwardness of Rin's captain whistling at them from across the street, the whole confession thing seemed like a moot point.

 

 

Nanase Haruka is just a boy, from a small fishing town that no one has ever heard of.

But he has a best friend named Makoto, and a boyfriend named Matsuoka Rin, and they make him feel like something extraordinary.


End file.
